Lessons Learned

My writing focus has been toward My gig at Examiner.com This post does not fit within the guidlines, of an Examiner article, so I finally get to update the blog.

Having good weather on  January day is a rare occurrence in Colorado.  Karen and I had discussed making a cache run into northeastern Colorado for the purpose of completing map squared for the state Delorme challenge.

I was able to quickly run a pocket query for the route heading up I-76.  We even had a few caches in nearby Nebraska.  A contingency if time allowed us to 'color' in another state on the US map. 

I loaded Karen's GPS first. A Garmin GPSmap 60cx with the query results via Geocaching Swiss Army Knife, and also updated her GPS with the weekly local caches in out area.

I repeated the exact procedure with my new Garmin Oregon 300. I was looking forward to work the GPS through its paces. A few minutes later, we were off.

As we entered the area of where are first caches should be, Karen said, "There is one at the next exit" , my GPS showed nothing.  Karen guided me to the first cache, but still did not show up on my GPS.  Since we were relying on  the Oregon for the cache descriptions, we thought we were dead in the water for this trip.

However, having a smartphone saved the day. I was able to use the browser to access geocaching.com and get the first cache description.  Success followed soon after.

We were able to complete the map segments in a few hours.  We also had time to make a quick run into Big Springs, NE. Where we found our first Nebraska cache at a truck stop just off I-80.  After that, we began out return back to Denver.  We only found a total of 12 caches on 12 attempts.  It wasn't the quantity, but the adventure into a part of Colorado we had never visited.  I would like to return to the cities of Fort Morgan, Sterling, and Julesburg to explore their Colorado History.  We met two very nice gentlemen that were operating the welcome center in Julesburg.  We introduced them to geocaching, and told us about the 10K volkswalk that starts and ends at the center. 

Lessons learned
Redundancy is a good thing:  Having a second GPS loaded with our caches to hunt saved this trip and make it for a fun day for us.

Learn how your GPS works BEFORE you go: I figured out since I was loading two different files of GPS points, I need to give them two different names. I had overwritten the NE Colorado caches with the local caches.

Have fun:  Our goal was not to kill ourselves logging a large quantity of caches, leave some to return and explore the area in depth at a later date.

Consumer Electronics Examiner: Garmin to update Oregon series GPS with camera; Geotaggers rejoice

Update to the post yesterday on the new Garmin Oregon Models


Consumer Electronics Examiner: Garmin to update Oregon series GPS with camera; Geotaggers rejoice

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New Garmin Oregon Models?

Received this link via Twitter this evening. It appears Garmin will introduce two new models of the Oregon GPSr model. The new features will include a built in digital camera to allow geotagging of photos. We will update as additional ifor comes out.

Cacheaversary

I have just completed my second year of geocaching. Better know as a cacheaversary. This term was coined by fellow geocacher and podcaster darrylw4 on his blog posts, so I give him credit for coining a new word. If we can get it used enough in the lexicon, we may see it in the dictionary someday.

My first day caching was labor day 2006. I had been introduced to geocaching by accident. I attended a monthly Boy Scout roundtable the prior month, where the topic was use a GPS with a map. I almost didn't go, but decided the topic was interesting enough to attend. My friend, Brian was presenting that evening. The topic was interesting enough, but the one thing that stuck with me was when he mentioned geoaching in the 'other resoures' section of the meeting. He described it as treasure hunting with a gps. I checked out the website that evening, and signed up for the free account. The next week, I ordered the Garmin GPSmap60cx that I still use today.

A few weeks later, I figured out how to load caches on the GPS, and then was off to the nearby park to attempt my first hunt. I bought my daughter along for support. The fist location has us searhing in a pile of rocks We searched for a half hour, but no luck. We decided to move towards the next one. After few minutes...SUCCESS!! We found the cache up in a tree! I boosted my daughter up to grab it and we savored our victory.

We decided to go back and try the first cache. After another half hour, we were about to give up. But I pick up one of the rocks, and this time turned it over. The cache was hidden in a carved out section. Success again! We signe the log and headed for home to record our day on geocaching.com.

In the two years since I stated geocaching, I have had one adventure after another. Geocaching take you places you never thougt you would go. From out of the way local parks, to a high cliff on the shores of Maui, to doing a podcast with Karen.

What is next?? Stay tuned.